The NY times says that conservatives are happier than liberals even now. Do you agree?
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WHO is happier about life — liberals or conservatives? The answer might seem straightforward. After all, there is an entire academic literature in the social sciences dedicated to showing conservatives as naturally authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity, fearful of threat and loss, low in self-esteem and uncomfortable with complex modes of thinking. And it was the candidate Barack Obama in 2008 who infamously labeled blue-collar voters “bitter,” as they “cling to guns or religion.” Obviously, liberals must be happier, right?
Wrong. Scholars on both the left and right have studied this question extensively, and have reached a consensus that it is conservatives who possess the happiness edge. Many data sets show this. For example, the Pew Research Center in 2006 reported that conservative Republicans were 68 percent more likely than liberal Democrats to say they were “very happy” about their lives. This pattern has persisted for decades. The question isn’t whether this is true, but why.
Many conservatives favor an explanation focusing on lifestyle differences, such as marriage and faith. They note that most conservatives are married; most liberals are not. (The percentages are 53 percent to 33 percent, according to my calculations using data from the 2004 General Social Survey, and almost none of the gap is due to the fact that liberals tend to be younger than conservatives.) Marriage and happiness go together. If two people are demographically the same but one is married and the other is not, the married person will be 18 percentage points more likely to say he or she is very happy than the unmarried person.
The story on religion is much the same. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, conservatives who practice a faith outnumber religious liberals in America nearly four to one. And the link to happiness? You guessed it. Religious participants are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives as are secularists (43 percent to 23 percent). The differences don’t depend on education, race, sex or age; the happiness difference exists even when you account for income
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Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/c...
Top Opinion
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Dwight-AFCL>dogsbody 2012/07/10 17:52:05I agree.
+9From what I've seen either Can be true, but Liberals are more prone to Searching for the next person to hate or protest.
page 566
"Furthermore, adjusting for church attendance in Step 3 and need for cognition in Step 4 brought about no change in the relation between conservatism and happiness. After adjusting for rationalization of inequality in Step 5, however, we found that the effect of conservatism on life satisfaction was no longer reliable."
Page 567
"Above and beyond the effects of church attendance, income, marital status, and other demographic variables, there was a significant effect of political orientation on life satisfaction; the difference between conservatives’ and liberals’ satisfaction with life was explained at least in part by conservatives’ stronger tendencies to rationalize economic inequality."
That last sentence is summed up in the Discussion at the end of the extensive study. Conservatives are "happier" because they only think about themselves, and "rationalize economic inequality."
I'm sure I would be "happier" too if I didn't care about anybody but myself.
Right now, the conservatives of the nation are NOT happy at all because of the candidate they are having to run and the results of the AHCA decision by SCOTUS as well as the continued gains in job creation in the private sector which is working against the Republican Party.
You really need to bring your self up to date and live in the real world of NOW.
It is NOW that conservatives are bragging about the studies - whenever they were published. I don't belong to any political party; so for me it isn't a political issue. The conservatives has chosen to make it one, as did the NY Times article published in July, 2012.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/jost...
Liberals have the weight of the ENTIRE world on theirs. Of course they're gonna be unhappy.
LIBERALS PREFER WOMEN TO BE MEN HATERS, LESBIAN EVEN BETTER. THEY PREFER SPERM DONERS THROUGH A TURKEY BASTER SO NO CONTACT AT ALL WITH A MAN IS BEST.
THEY PREFER WOMEN TO REPEAT ALL THE LIES ABOUT LOWER WAGES THAN MEN, LACK OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AND THAT IF THE DEMOCRATS ARE NOT IN OFFICE THEY WILL ALL BE RAPED AND SOLD INTO SLAVERY.
NO MY FRIEND WOMEN ARE TREATED AS A WARD OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, THERE TO MANIPULATE AND GET TO THE POLLS, OTHERWISE...THEY DON'T CARE.